Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Environmentalists tend to view technology with suspicion. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 and the catastrophes at Bhopal (1984) and Chernobyl (1986), such suspicion appears warranted. And opponents of technology are not only concerned about such massive environmental disasters, even though this is often the time that environmentalist criticisms of technology reach the general public. Critics of technology see such disasters as an inevitable result of measuring progress in terms of our ability to manipulate the environment through technology. And thus, while critical of the environmental damage caused by the use of various technologies, critics have also raised concerns about the social and political consequences of technological use and development. In the first part of this chapter, I will discuss these criticisms. Even when the consequences of technology are not particularly problematic, some critics nonetheless believe that technology is bad. In the second part of this chapter, I will assess the normative arguments mounted by critics against technology, and explore the value assumptions upon which the criticisms of technology depend.Many of the objectionable environmental consequences of technology are obvious. In addition to the disasters just mentioned, one need only pick up a daily newspaper to see that human reliance on technology is a large contributing ... log in or subscribe to read full text